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11 September, 2011

Trek Into the Past

It's been nearly twenty years since I lost my Star Trek innocence. I wasn't much of a sci-fi fan as a teenager, especially not the teevee shows. I loved Buck Rogers and Battlestar Galactica and... that was just about it. I truly believed most of those shows were horribly corny, with awful special effects and atrocious writing. I was above all that. I would never ever in my entire life become a Star Trek fan. Star Trek fans were pathetic and weird.

Ah, youth. So full of certainty and so full of shit.

Then my friend Ryan spent a few days with us on his summer break from college. This happened at the same time they'd started releasing Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS. Yes, I am dating myself. Shut up. Anyway, Ryan saw these while we were at Wal-Mart one afternoon and snapped them up with evident glee. His little face just glowed. And he assumed that I, of course, would watch them with him.

"No," I said. "I hate Star Trek."

His face. So shocked. He pitched. He pleaded. He cajoled. He seemed to give up in the face of my continued refusal. I should've known better. Ryan was a man who could hear the word no, but not when it came to entertainment he believed in. And he could be a devious little bastard.

He also knew me very well. Since he was staying at my place with a herd of other friends, he had easy access to both me and backup. So at 8 in the ay-em, when I was still dead unconscious, he came into my bedroom. "We're gonna watch Star Trek."

I think I meant to say something like, "That's nice, dear. I'm going to continue sleeping," but what I really said was, "Groan."

He started in on a let's-watch-Star-Trek-together sales pitch, ending with, "C'mon. Just one."

"If you want me to watch Star Trek," I said, "you'll have to carry me out there."

And so he did. He scooped me right out of bed. He's not the strongest man in the universe, but he was determined. Picture him staggering through my chaotic bedroom, trying to avoid tripping over debris, navigating hazards, while I watched the approaching door with the certainty that I was about to have my head cracked open upon it, if he didn't fall and squish me first. I was about to die because a friend wanted me to watch Star Trek.

We made it to the living room with only minor bruising. He deposited me in front of the television whilst the other houseguests laughed and roared their approval. Ryan may not have been a strong man, but he was a smart man. He stuffed a Coke in my hand, knowing that at this hour and so equipped, I wouldn't have the will to move for at least an hour, and an hour was all he needed. Then he turned on the telly.

The episode, for those interested, was "The Naked Now." Yeah. If you know it, you're already laughing.

By the end of that hour, I was hooked. By the end of summer, I was a full-on fan. I became an officer in our local fan club. I dressed as Deanna Troi for Ryan's next visit (which didn't shock him half so much as the fact that I was wearing makeup). I loved the friend who constantly wore his starship captain's uniform, and didn't think it at all weird that he'd spent months figuring out how to say, "Take your ticket and get on the damned boat" in Klingon. He worked for a boat rental company, it made perfect sense.

I owned the Enterprise's manual. I wrote Star Trek fan fic. I read the books (and to this day, Q-in-Law is one of my favorite reading experiences. Read it. You'll laugh). I watched all the movies. And I discovered a wealth of stories I hadn't even known existed.

Star Trek taught me that sci-fi could be awesome, even in the television industry, even when the special effects weren't all that. It taught me that this genre could tell amazing stories.

I rather drifted away after those halcyon early years of passion. I no longer read the books or write the fan fic. I don't belong to a fan group, or keep up on the new spinoffs, or even all of the movies. But I haven't stopped loving Star Trek.

I'll always want my tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

I'll always want to see them boldly going where no show has gone before, even if I'm not along for every voyage.

3 comments:

Make it so. I'll date myself even more badly when I tell you I watched most of the original series when they were first broadcast. By the time I was in high school, they were in syndication, and not only could I name every episode, I could recite most of them. I was terribly sick.

I am oft reminded of a Star Trek Next Generation episode where where a hominoid species' planet was warming at a rate which would in mere generations render the planet uninhabitable to the hominoid species, and they figured out a way launch collate and thousands of years hence launch their collective memory into the mind of a passing star ship captain.